Alto’s Adventure: Tips, tricks, and pointers to get you past the triple backflip and more

As anyone who follows me on Twitter can attest, I became a teensy bit obsessed with Alto’s Adventure. The endlessly-charming endless runner for iOS and Apple TV combines llamas, snowboarding tricks, beautiful landscapes, and devilishly hard goals to keep you coming back time and time again. I’ve spent awhile with Alto’s twisting slopes and precipitous chasms, but news of upcoming sequel Alto’s Odyssey had me pulling the game back out for more fun on the slopes. Here are a few of my top tips for acing each one of those 60 levels and beating your friends’ high scores.

When you start out on the slopes with Alto, you can score points by performing a number of tricks, including backflips (by tapping and holding anywhere on the screen), jumping on rocks or campfires, and grinding on flag lines or rooftops.

Single backflips, though fun to do, score a paltry 10 points per flip; rock bounces are a bit better, offering 80 points. Grinds, though, stack depending on how long you stay on the line or roof: They start at 10 points, then add 5 points every 2 meters.

As such, grinds are your best bet for initial point values. Even better, you can combine grinds with other tricks to multiply your score. Every trick you do adds a multiplier value: For example, a backflip onto a grind with a backflip in-between or at the end of the grind will net you 3x your initial point value collection. There are even sections of the game where you can jump from line grind to roof grind to increase both your initial point value and your multiplier.

You’ll only get those points if you land your trick, however, so make sure to stick the landing and avoid crashing into the snow.

Use your cast of characters

The game may be called Alto’s Adventure, but Alto isn’t the only playable character in your arsenal. As you play through the game, you’ll unlock a total of six mountain-dwellers, each with their own unique abilities.

Maya (one of my three favorites) is spry and light and can make quick work of backflips, but has trouble with speed and chasms if she’s not coming off a trick boost. She’s great fun for doing long runs and scoring crazy combos, however.

Paz is a smasher: He’s big and not really a backflip kind of guy, but will pick up some serious speed on downhill runs, ice slides, and grinds. And when he’s riding a speed boost off a trick, he can demolish all manner of items for a much longer period of time than Alto or Maya.

Izel is reputedly responsible for all the fancy gadgets you can pick up in the workshop. She’s a faster backflipper than Alto or Paz, and gets extra speed boosts off tricks thanks to some fancy rocket-powered snowboard technology. I love using Izel to travel many meters quickly, though that speed sometimes means she can run into unpredictable chasms and snowbanks.

Felipe is my secret favorite character: a llama who snuck out of Alto’s home and has learned how to snowboard. Being a llama, Felipe has a bit more jumping ability than his human friends, and can double-jump to get some extra airtime. You can time Felipe’s jumps by either double-tapping instantly to get some initial big air, or tapping once and then tapping a second time to stall Felipe’s snowboard and give him a little extra time to land his jump.